Filmmaker lists “Top 10 Fake News that the PAP keeps perpetuating”

Deputy Speaker Charles Chong announced on Thursday, January 11, the formation of a ten-member Select Committee of Members of Parliament (MPs) to address the issue of fake news.

Several socio-political commentators have weighed in on the issue since news of the Committee broke, questioning how the government intends to curb fake news besides postulating what exactly might constitute fake news online. Some have even called on the authorities to look at “falsehoods” the government itself may have propagated before taking measures to combat such news broadcast by others.

One such voice belongs to local filmmaker Martyn See, who posted a list entitled “Top 10 Fake News that the PAP keeps perpetuating” online long before the Committee was set up, back in November last year.

In the post, which he has re-shared on his Facebook page in the wake of the formation of the Select Committee, See lists the following ten statements as supposed falsehoods spread by the ruling party:

1. Singapore was a fishing village before 1965.2. Singapore is a meritocracy.3. Singapore has parliamentary democracy.4. Elections in Singapore are free and fair.5. The mainstream press is fair, objective and responsible. 6. High salaries attract competent and honest politicians. 7. Foreign talents create more jobs.8. There is rule of law in Singapore.9. The ISD do not torture detainees.10. Lee Kuan Yew is Singapore’s founding father.

Top 10 Fake News that the PAP keeps perpetuating.1. Singapore was a fishing village before 1965.2. Singapore is a…

13 COMMENTS

Fake News and False News. There are two meanings to the word Fake: Imitation and Sham. Often, it takes an expert to tell an imitation from a genuine. Eg a watch (Rolex) or a painting (Picasso). Sham is news that are skewed or biased. Eg. in the round up of 2017, listing the hot political potatoes for the year, you exclude the Lee Debacle, the SkillsFuture Scam, the Keppel Corruption, or the SMRT Fiaso, the article is fake. You pretend that these events are insignificant. You are dishonest. It’s a sham. In the present debate, the correct word is False News, whose object is to mislead.

Recently, TISG published a laundry list of what it reported to be filmmaker Martin See’s 10 pet peeves about ‘fake news’. Here’s my take on them in CliffNotes version couched in parenthesis:

1. Singapore was a fishing village before 1965.
[Patently not so! Before Sir Raffles set shop here in 1819, local pop. was less than a thousand; by the turn of the century, it was over 228K, a bona fide hyperactive entrepôt/metropolis already by 1901; surely not some fishing-village jerkwater kampong by any stretch of the imagination.]

2. Singapore is a meritocracy.
[If by it, meant a society managed and ruled by skilled and talented people selected on the basis of their abilities, Little Red Dot does qualify as such to a point. But are they the best? … far from it; case in point: SMRT CEO Desmond Kuek’s rumored salary of S$2.25 to S$2.5 million in the last 3 years simply does not comport with the strict meaning of meritocracy.]

3. Singapore has parliamentary democracy.
[To be precise, it’s a one-dominant party parliamentary democracy; a rose by any other name is still a rose.]

4. Elections in Singapore are free and fair.
[Under a one-man-one-vote system, it’s deemed free and fair, ceteris paribus — but all things in life are never being equal. However, for example, if a pol was clobbered not once but 5 times on the hustings, he has himself to blame.]

5. The mainstream press is fair, objective and responsible.
[Sure, it is as fair and objective as its government-appointed overseer would allow it.]

6. High salaries attract competent and honest politicians.
[There is a modicum of truth to that… even the Beijing Mandarins are now seriously looking at adopting such a scheme in order to ameliorate the incidence of corrupt officials being sent to the firing squads.]

7. Foreign talents create more jobs.
[If the definition of foreign talents encompasses the MNCs, then for sure they bring more jobs and competition to the local market.]

8. There is rule of law in Singapore.
[Of course the rule of law prevails in the city-state; Amos Yee would be the first to concede to that… but it is a rule of law highly peculiar to its own taste such as hanging the Damoclean sword over one’s nephew’s head because of his PRIVATE Fb postings.]

9. The ISD do not torture detainees.
[Fair’s fair — of all the less than honorable missteps of the gov., physical torturing of political detainees is not amongst its calling cards.]

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